The present invention relates to a side vehicle-body structure of a vehicle which considers a load inputted from a vehicle forward side and belongs to a technical field of a vehicle-body structure.
In a vehicle, such as an automotive vehicle, at a forward side portion of a vehicle body are provided a hinge pillar extending in a vertical direction and supporting a front door, a front pillar extending upward from an upper end portion of the hinge pillar, and an apron member extending forward from a joint portion of the both pillars. Herein, the vehicle is configured such that when a large load is inputted from the vehicle forward side, this load is dispersed and transmitted to the both pillars from the apron member.
However, this structure has the following problem. That is, when the load is inputted, a joint portion of the hinge pillar to the front pillar, where a lower end portion of the apron member is joined, is sunk downward in accordance with folding deformation in which a vehicle-body forward-side portion of the apron member is lifted upward. Consequently, the front pillar is folded and deformed, which may influence a cabin inside badly.
The following countermeasures against this problem may be considered. That is, the rigidity of the joint portion of the hinge pillar to the front pillar is increased by providing a reinforcement at the joint portion of the upper end of the hinge pillar to the lower end portion of the front pillar or providing a vertical reinforcing structure combined with a reinforcement beam steering at an upper end portion of a front pillar lower, which corresponds to the hinge pillar, as shown in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-193001. Thereby, the load from the vehicle forward side may be effectively dispersed to the hinge pillar and the front pillar, so that the above-described deformation may be suppressed.
However, since the upper end portion of the front pillar lower is reinforced by plural parts in the structure of the above-described patent document, there is still room for improvement in terms of the weight.